Monday, June 10, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for June 11, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for June 11, 2013

Robert A. Hall

Submitting to the Old Jarhead Blog

I appreciate the dozens of people who send me items for this blog. There simply would be enough hours in the day to produce it without you, even if I had no other obligations. I apologize to those who didn’t get in. I tend to skip items that are too intemperate as they help the left by making us look bad, including most conspiracies theories, unless documented beyond question by independent sources. If you just send a link to a video, with no copy, it’s unlikely I have time to open it. I also tend to use only a few item about a particular story, though things with many facets, like the IRS scandal, are an exception. I am looking for political news, including economic or international items, and good opinions of conservative thought. Items without a URL seldom get used, as I don’t have time to search for them. Your best chance of seeing an item on the blog is to submit it formatted, as below. ~Bob

Excerpt: Suddenly, half the country is upset with Obama for the recent flurry of scandals. Even some in the media are perplexed. Why the sudden angst, given that Obama is simply being Obama? We, not he, changed the rules.

Have not seen confirmation in American media. ~Bob. Excerpt: A large American military force disembarked Tuesday, June 4, at the southern Jordanian port of Aqaba - ready for deployment on the kingdom's Syrian border, Exclusive military sources report. The force made its way north along the Aqaba-Jerash-Ajilon mountain road bisecting Jordan from south to north, under heavy Jordanian military escort. Our sources disclose that this American force numbers 3,000 troops, the largest to land in Jordan since the Syrian civil war erupted in March 2012. They are members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Force carried aboard the USS Kearsage amphibious assault ship, which has been anchored off neighboring Israeli Eilat since mid-May. Upon landing, the marines took to the road in a convoy of armored vehicles including Hummers. (Man, I hope this isn't true. I would rather see them deploy on the US-Mexican border. –LLW)

Excerpt: Email records show that the White House knew about the secret email account used by former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson since at least February 2010. (Ah, yes, the “most transparent administration in history.” ~bob.)

Excerpt: THE cheerleaders of the European Union like to think of it as an entirely new phenomenon, born of the horrors of two world wars. But in fact it closely resembles a formation that many Europeans thought they had long since left to the dustbin of history: the Holy Roman Empire, the political commonwealth under which the Germans lived for many hundreds of years. (The old academic bon mot was that the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t an empire, wasn’t Roman and surely wasn’t Holy! ~Bob.)

Excerpt: In a classic article, StanfordUniversity professor Kenneth Arrow argued that the market for medical care is inherently flawed because of asymmetric information. In what follows, I am going to embellish on the argument, making it even more forceful than it was in the original text. The doctor knows more than the patient. As a result, doctors can recommend unnecessary care that enhances their incomes, even though it may be of no benefit to the patients. Doctors might also recommend one drug over another or one medical device over another because of their financial relations with the producers. Because of their limited knowledge, patients have no reliable way of evaluating the quality of the advice they are getting ― especially when they get different advice from different doctors. About the only check on the system is third-party payer utilization review. But this is crude and highly imperfect activity engaged in by another party that has a financial interest in the outcome.

Excerpt: Yet the unemployment rate is not the best guide to the strength of the labor market, particularly during this recession and recovery, says Edward P. Lazear, a fellow at the Hoover Institution. Instead, the Fed and the rest of us should be watching the employment rate. There are two reasons. A better measure of a strong labor market is the proportion of the population that is working, not the proportion that isn't. In 2006, 63.4 percent of the working-age population was employed. That percentage declined to a low of 58.2 percent in July 2011 and now stands at 58.6 percent. By this measure, the labor market's health has barely changed over the past three years.

Excerpt: Perhaps the most unexpected consequence of the policy has been its impact on worldwide food prices. The U.S. fuel industry relied heavily on corn ethanol to comply with the RFS requirements. The resulting demand drastically increased the price for corn globally, not just domestically. As corn prices skyrocketed, farmers switched to corn production from production of other cereals, which reduced the latter's supply. At the same time, consumers substituted less expensive rice and wheat for corn. This substitution increased demand and prices for wheat and rice, staple foods across many regions in Africa and Asia. Overall, the RFS program led to higher prices for staple foods all over the world. By some estimates, up to 70 percent to 75 percent of the increase in food prices was due to biofuels and the related consequences of low grain stocks, large land use shifts, speculative activity and export bans. The spike in food prices, coupled with the global economic crisis, halted and even reversed the long-time trend in reducing malnutrition. (Progressives—starving the poor so they can feel all green and fuzzy. Like bad meat. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Every nation bordering Syria—Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey—is being drawn into the conflict there. The leaders in these countries are worried, to say the least. But why is Saudi Arabia in a panic?

Excerpt: Libya's army chief of staff resigned on Sunday as an elite military unit took control of a base of pro-government militias after clashes killed 31 people in the eastern city of Benghazi. (The poisoned fruit of Obama’s illegal war. Syria will be worse if we jump in. ~Bob.)

(VERY GRAPHIC!) Syrian jihadist ‘rebels’ did this to a 15-year-old boy, yet Senator John McCain wants to send our military to help them

Excerpt: SOHR activists in Aleppo have verified that al-Qaeda linked rebels detained, then slaughtered, a young teen last night for blaspheming the prophet Mohammed during an argument. (Don't scroll down unless you really need to see what our tax money will be paying for soon. If you still have one iota of respect for either political party, then you need to do something. Check yourself out in the bathroom mirror for the telltale signs of a frontal lobotomy. If you respect US politicians, then you will no doubt see the scars. BTW, Romney wanted to take out Assad and turn Syria over to these 'rebels.' We do not have a political party that is looking out for you and me of the middle class with ordinary Judeo-Christian values. 90% of Americans are disenfranchised. --Don Hank)

Excerpt: A 29-year-old man who says he is a former undercover CIA employee said Sunday that he was the principal source of recent disclosures about ­top-secret National Security Agency programs, exposing himself to possible prosecution in an acknowledgment that had little if any precedent in the long history of U.S. intelligence leaks. Edward Snowden, a tech specialist who has contracted for the NSA and works for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, unmasked himself as a source after a string of stories in The Washington Post and the Guardian that detailed previously unknown U.S. surveillance programs.

Edward Snowden, NSA files source: 'If they want to get you, in time they will'

Excerpt: The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

The ability to know everything, except right from wrong. By Mark Steyn

Excerpt: A government that requires "integrity provisions" is by definition past the stage where they will do any good. I thought of those Canadian Liberal "integrity provisions" passing a TV screen the other day and catching hack bureaucrats from the IRS Small Business/Self-Employed Division reassuring Congress that systems had now been put in place to prevent them succumbing to the urge to put on Spock ears and moob-hugging blue polyester for the purposes of starring in a "Star Trek" government training video.

Hardly breaking news. ~Bob. Excerpt: Sociologist George Yancy asked professors if they would be more or less likely to hire someone if they were a Republican, evangelical or fundamentalist. Three-quarters said political affiliation would not affect their hiring decision. But the one-quarter that did say it would influence their decision virtually all said they would favor a Democrat over a Republican. Almost half of the sociology professors surveyed said they would look unfavorably upon evangelicals and fundamentalists trying to get a job in their department!

The Totalitarianism at the Heart of the Obama Scandals. By Mark Tapson

Excerpt: The Obama administration’s legs are wobbling under the weight of so many scandals lately that whole chunks of the edifice – the IRS, the NSA, the DOJ – are threatening to implode, particularly without support from the normally adoring media. Even the New York Times – the New York Times! – is no longer willing to bolster an administration whose totalitarian urges have been exposed to the light.

Beck: Not A Jew Alive If Hitler Had Obama's Tech

Excerpt: As reports continue to flood in about President Obama’s massive surveillance state, media powerhouse Glenn Beck says, “There wouldn’t be a Jew alive on the planet today if Hitler had this technology.” Beck made the statement Fridayon his radio program while interviewing NSA whistleblower William Binney.

Excerpt: The Wall Street Journal reported today thatU.S. credit card companies had also provided customer information. The officials would not disclose the names of the companies because, they said, doing so would provide U.S. enemies with a list of companies to avoid. They declined to confirm the list of participants in an internet monitoring program revealed by the Washington Post and the Guardian, but both confirmed that the program existed. "The idea is to create a mosaic.

Islamists 'Staking Claim' WithMaryland'Cultural Center'

Excerpt: On his visit to a new Turkish-funded mosque in Lanham, Md., Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erodogan said his government chose the site because of its location in “free territory.” He said when he attended the groundbreaking of the 15-acre, $100 million mega-mosque that the Turkish-AmericanCulturalCenter likely will become “the largest and most striking examples of Islamic architecture in the Western hemisphere when finished in 2014.” … Shoebat said Erdogan’s true mission is to claim the land for Islam, and the evidence is in his words.

Excerpt: WND has received an unclassified NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) that warns airmen not to look at news stories related to the data-mining scandal. The notice applies to users of the Air Force NIPRNET (Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network), which is the only way that many troops stationed overseas and on bases in the U.S. are able to access the Internet. The last line of the executive summary states: “Users are not to use AF NIPRNET systems to access the Verizon phone records collection and other related news stories because the action could constitute a Classified Message Incident.”

Excerpt: Fine recognized 23-year-old John Zawahri's eyes in a 2006 yearbook photo shown to her by The Associated Press as police officially named him as the shooter on Sunday. ("Investigators were looking at family connections to find a motive...". Let's see, his name was, uh...oh, yeah, John Zawahri. This is just a wild guess, but could he possibly have been a follower of the "religion of peace"? If so, the motive should be evident, even to the most casual observer. He was simply practicing his religion by killing infidels. If he wasn't a follower of the prophet, he was just a crazed Democrat. It's a toss-up without more information. – LLW)

Illegal Alien Mexicans, Central Americans Are Stuck In Poverty In The Nation's Breadbasket (Dave Levine’s non-p.c. version of title by Gosia Wozniacka at Yahoo)

Excerpt: You've got to read thru these AP pieces. They're so ridiculously one-sided, always on the side of the lawbreaker. ( Incredibly, no one who writes about 'immigrants' ever mentions that Mexico has about half the unemployment as the US and twice the economic growth rate. There is a racial bias in the media that suggests that living in Mexico is like living in the Sahara desert. That there is no food or water and that people can't find work there. It is a perverse lie that is perpetuated on both sides of the border. This article, if it were in the least fair, would state the obvious, namely, that the US no longer has the economic power to satisfy the American dream, and ask the question: Why don't these people just go back and live in their country where there is still plenty of work to be found? --Don Hank. Maybe they don’t want work. How do Mexican welfare benefits stack up to the US? ~Bob.)

"The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent." --economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)

Excerpt: The people calling upon Sebelius to intervene and grant a waiver from the usual rules regarding children and transplants are the ones urging the politicization of medical care -- at least in this case. … As Sebelius noted in response to a congressman demanding that she change the rules, 222 people are waiting for lung transplants in Sarah's region alone, including six children aged 10 and younger. Nationally, about 1,700 people are waiting for lung transplants, including 31 children 10 and younger. Lung transplants are very high risk -- only 50 percent of recipients survive longer than five years. (Hard case. As one of the folks on the list, I have no objection to kids going first. But my PCP doc said if they put a lung into the girl that is too big for her to function, she dies, and so does someone else on the list who doesn’t get a lung. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: The NSA is tracking phone calls and Google searches because that's what it's in business to do. The only reason the NSA exists is to track phone calls and Google searches - or some facsimile of those things. The CIA is spying on people because that's what we pay them to do. (I’m inclined to concur with the author in this case. For readers who aren’t fans of Tom Clancy novels, it should be pointed out that he “predicted” the gathering of metadata in his book “Teeth of the Tiger,” back in 2003 and reinforced the idea in 2010 with “Dead or Alive.” How, one wonders, did he get so prescient? He read the Patriot Act. We Americans—along with everyone else in the world (you didn’t think OUR government was the only one doing it, did you?)—have little privacy anymore. How should we deal with that? Very carefully. Have minimal cameras that can be remotely activated. Keep your mouth shut and your typing fingers idle. And, don’t pay for your indiscretions with credit or debit cards, or on-line for that matter. --Ron P.)